BRAZIL Law and Practice Contributed by: Bruna Rocha, Jessica Filka, Juliana Marcondes and Victoria Cristofaro, COSRO
de Importação ) or through the licences, permits, cer- tificates and other documents (LPCO) module tied to the Single Import Declaration ( Declaração Única de Importação ), depending on the customs declaration used. The governing regulation, Portaria Secex No 249/2023, sets default review timeframes of up to ten days for automatic licences and up to 60 days for non-auto- matic licences when a complete request is proper- ly filed, and clarifies that a pre-shipment licence is required only where an agency’s specific regulation so provides and the Siscomex entry reflects that stricter timing. In practice, therefore, the trigger is not only the Harmonized Tariff Schedule (HTS)/NCM code; it is the NCM code as further qualified by the agency- defined attributes and the declared operation, which together determine whether, for example, a product is a medicine, an API, a medical device, a telecom ter- minal, a pesticide, a seed, a live animal, a Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES)-listed specimen, a controlled dual-use item or an apparently innocuous good that nonetheless falls into an exception because it is used, quota bound or originates in a country covered by UN measures. Goods subject to non-tariff requirements Brazilian law does not maintain a single static annex in a statute listing all goods subject to non-tariff requirements upon import. Instead, the authoritative, binding list is the administrative treatment database that Siscomex/ Portal Único publishes and continu- ously updates. Portaria Secex No 249/2023 makes that explicit by directing that the list of goods and operations subject to import licensing be published at siscomex.gov.br with four mandatory data points for each entry: • the NCM classification or a description of the operation subject to licensing; • the responsible consenting authority; • the legal basis; and • whether the licence is automatic or non-automatic. The general legal basis for automating this publica- tion model and for using Siscomex as the vehicle is Decree No 660/1992, as amended to align Siscomex
with Brazil’s single-window initiative, and Portaria Secex No 65/2020, which governs how consenting agencies are habilitated and how they include, mod- ify or remove administrative treatments in Siscomex. As part of a broader 2023–25 modernisation, Secex consolidated import licensing rules in Portaria Secex No 249/2023 and, in August 2024, expressly revoked Portaria Secex No 23/2011 in full. The effect of these measures, taken together, is that the product cover- age and the competent authority for each category of controlled goods are determined by the Siscomex Administrative Treatment entry, and not by disparate static annexes scattered across older acts. Licensing Triggers Although the administrative treatment is the opera- tive list for importers, it points back to sectoral stat- utes and regulations that define the product universe under each regulator’s remit. For sanitary regulated goods, Law No 6,360/1976 defines the categories of products subject to health surveillance, and Law No 9,782/1999 vests ANVISA with the authority to regulate and supervise their importation. ANVISA’s comprehensive procedural rule for imports, RDC No 81/2008, as updated, sets the technical import regime for health surveillance goods, ties its coverage to NCM-based listings published on ANVISA’s website, and prescribes licensing, pre-shipment authorisation where applicable, documentation, and inspection requirements for medicines, APIs, health products and medical devices, cosmetics and personal care prod- ucts, foods and food ingredients, and certain biologics Some licensing requirements are driven not by intrinsic product identity but by the nature of the import oper- ation. Brazil subjects used goods to non-automatic import licensing as a matter of policy, with defined exceptions and procedures administered by Secex under Portaria Secex No 249/2023. Imports conduct- ed under certain special regimes may be licensed or exempted depending on the regime, as reflected in the administrative treatment. Operations under tariff or non-tariff quotas administered by Secex require non- automatic licensing for quota management; Secex maintains the quota criteria and allocation rules in specific portarias and cross references them in Sis- and controlled substances. Cross-Cutting Requirements
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